The Wing-and-Wing; Or, Le Feu-Follet

by James Fenimore Cooper

The experiment was made, and it succeeded. The Proserpine worked beautifully, and Yelverton knew how to humor her to a nicety. In five minutes the ship was round, with everything trimmed on the other tack;--close-reefed mizzen, and double-reefed fore and maintop-sails--a reefed mainsail, with other sails to suit. As she was kept a rap full, or a little off, indeed, to prevent the lugger from slipping past, she might have gone from five to six knots.

The next five minutes were intensely interesting to the people of the Proserpine. The weather became thicker, and all traces of le Feu-Follet were lost. Still, when last seen, she was wing-and-wing, flying rather than sailing down toward their own track. By Cuffe's calculation, the two vessels would nearly meet in less than a quarter of an hour, should neither alter her course. Several guns were got ready, in preparation for such a rencontre.

"Let the weather hold thick a few minutes longer, and we have her!" cried Cuffe. "Mr. Yelverton, you must go down and see to those guns yourself. Plump it right into her, if you're ordered to fire. The fellow has no hamper, and stripping him must be a matter of pure accident. Make it too hot for him on deck, and he'll have to give up, Raoul Yvard or the d--l!"

"There she is, sir!" shouted a midshipman from a cathead--for everybody who dared had crowded forward to get an early look at the chase.

There she was, sure enough, wing-and-wing, as before, the dulness of the lugger's lookouts has never been explained, as a matter of course; but it was supposed, when all the circumstances came to be known, that most of her people were asleep, to recover from the recent extraordinary fatigue, and a night in which all hands had been, kept on deck in readiness to make sail; the vessel having but some thirty souls in her. At length the frigate was seen, the weather lighting, and it was not an instant too soon. The two vessels, at that critical instant, were about half a mile apart, le Feu-Follet bearing directly off the Proserpine's weather-bow. In the twinkling of an eye, the former jibed; then she was seen coming to the wind, losing sufficient ground in doing so to bring her just in a range with the two weather chase-guns. Cuffe instantly gave the order to open a fire.

"What the d--l has got into her?" exclaimed the captain; "she topples like a mock mandarin; she used to be as stiff as a church! What can it mean, sir?"

The master did not know, but we may say that the lugger was flying light, too much so for the canvas she carried, for, in such heavy weather, there was not time to shorten sail. She lurched heavily under the sea that was now getting up, and, a squall striking her, her lee guns were completely buried. Just at this moment the Proserpine belched forth her flame and smoke. The shot could not be followed, and no one knew where they struck. Four had been fired, when a squall succeeded that shut in the chase, and of course the firing was suspended. So severe was this momentary effort of the African gales, hot, drowsy, and deadening as they are, that the Proserpine started her mizzentop-sail sheets, and clewed up her main-course, to save the spar. But the tack was instantly boarded again, and the topsail set. A gleam of sunshine succeeded, but the lugger had disappeared!

The sun did not remain visible, and that faintly, more than a minute; still, the eye could range several miles, for thrice that period. After this the horizon became more limited, but no squall occurred for quarter of an hour. When the lugger was missed, the Proserpine was heading up within half a point of the spot at which she was supposed to be. In a short time she drove past this point, perhaps a hundred fathoms to leeward of it. Here she tacked, and, stretching off a sufficient distance to the southward and westward, came round again, and, heading up east-southeast, was thought to sweep along over the empty track. Not a sign of the missing vessel was discovered. The sea had swallowed all, lugger, people, and hamper. It was supposed that, owing to the fact that so many light articles had been left on the rocks, nothing remained to float. All had accompanied le Feu-Follet to the bottom. Of boats there were none, these being at the islet of the ruins, and, if any seaman swam off in the desperate attempt to save his life in the midst of the cauldron of waters, he did not succeed, or was overlooked by the English in their search. The latter, indeed, may have miscalculated their distances, and not have passed within a cable's-length of the place where the victims, if any such there were, still struggled for existence.

Cuffe, and all around him, were forcibly struck with so unlooked-for and so dire a calamity. The loss of a vessel, under such circumstances, produces an effect like a sudden death among companions. It is a fate all may meet with, and it induces reflection and sadness. Still, the English did not give up the hope of rescuing some unfortunate wretch, clinging to a spar, or supporting himself by supernatural efforts, for several hours. At noon, however, the ship squared away and ran for Naples before the wind, being drawn aside from her course by another chase, in which she succeeded better, capturing a sloop-of-war, which she carried in several days later.

The first act of Cuffe, on anchoring in the fleet, was to go on board the Foudroyant, and report himself and his proceedings to the rear-admiral. Nelson had heard nothing of the result, beyond what had occurred at the islets, and the separation of the ships.